On losing him from sight, he could see him even more clearly. His imagination kept vividly recalling certain details over which his eyes had wandered carelessly. There was something that stood out in painful relief in his memory: a few roses, a little bunch of roses, which the soldier was wearing on his breast, between two buttons of his uniform. An officer with flowers seemed rather strange! That was what had shocked the Prince at the first glance, shocked him so violently that his whole vision had been deeply disturbed. Yes, those flowers!...
He spent the rest of the day thinking about them. As he stretched out in his bed that night, darkness clarified the maze of thoughts and doubts whirling in his brain. He could see it all in a cold clear light. "It has happened already!"
He jumped out of bed and turned on the light, pacing up and down his bedroom in a fury.
"It has happened already!"
He kept repeating the words with anguished obsession; he repented his generosity, as though it were a crime. "Why didn't I kill him?" Then in plaintive tones he would repeat his original affirmation, concluding that what had happened was irreparable. Then he put out the light again; and for a long time, in the darkness, which once more filled the bedroom, the curses of the Prince resounded, alternating with fierce exclamations of wounded pride and sobs of rage.
The following day his conviction still persisted. The childlike beauty of the morning, which always inspires optimism, meant nothing to him. How was he to know the truth about that thing which he had suspected and feared, but which he never imagined would really come to pass?
A desperate curiosity caused him to spend the entire day in Monte Carlo. He met Martinez again. The officer kept on walking, turning his glance away in order not to see him; but the Prince imagined he caught a fleeting look of generous pity in his eyes, an expression of compassion for an unfortunate and inoffensive rival. Again he was wearing flowers; doubtless different from those of the day before.
Lubimoff repeated to himself the laments of the previous night: "Yes, it had already happened." It was impossible to doubt it. But the thought of killing him did not recur, nor did he repent of his generosity. That was all so useless now! He merely thought with envy of people in the submerged classes of society, who feel the impulses of passion very simply, without any disturbing sense of honor and solemn promises. They were men who could act regardless of laws and customs. When they wanted to kill some one, they went and did so!
He saw that Martinez was thinner than ever, with a feverish look in his eyes. Oh, that indefinable something, that suggestion of youthful vanity, of triumph and satisfaction, which seemed to radiate from his features like a halo of glory!
That evening, Toledo found himself brusquely repelled by his Prince, when he tried to tell him about a letter which he had received from Paris. The Administrator of the Prince's estate was getting impatient; he was asking for a reply from his Highness in regard to the sale of Villa Sirena.